[Closed] So what did the (Romans) Labour government ever do for us?

Minimum wage
Sorted out the banking crisis

Created family tax credits for lower income households 🙂

Tried to initiate ID cards 🙁

The number of people unemployed in the UK rose by 53,000 to 2.51 million during the three months to March, official figures have shown. 👿

Increased the CCTV ( surviellance) culture 👿

Reduced civil liberties 👿

Started to create a Police state 👿

Banned hunting with dogs ..... 👿

Started an illegal war 👿

Helped create a banking crisis 👿

Invaded Iraq

(Oops, sorry, you wanted to forget that one didn't you!)

Sure start centres
child tax credits
minimum wage

Oh... nearly forgot the ID card fiasco 👿

there's just so many things they got wrong it's hard to know what to put on the list 😉

yeah yeah, someone else start a slagging off thread. I want to be positive today.
Keep the good ones coming...
You'll remember in the original scene it was the anti-Romans talking...

freedom of information act
without that we would never have learnt about expenses etc

and both wars were done with the full support of the tory 'opposition'

Free porn films for minster's husbands 🙂

Double taxed pensions - dividends earned by the underlying fund are taxed and then the payment is taxed again (afaik).

Repeatedly announced the same spending on NHS multiple times to fool the general public that the amount they were spending was more than it really was.

Jiggered about with the FSA, BoE etc. and then let them have free reign, which contributed to the massive banking collapse.

Kept going on about bankers bonuses. The chancellor of the exchequer basically has the top responsibility for the banking system, and GB was at the top of that for a decade. and then the excrement hit the aircon.

Sold the family silver (well gold) at the lowest possible price he could have obtained. (Currency is secured against gold reserves).

OK all of the above was GB specifically, rather than Labour in general.

edit: oh and tax credits was one of many clever bits of politics from the biggest spin doctor of them all. Makes total tax receipts appear artificially lower, and makes total benefits payments look lower.

So to the above add..

increased tax in pretty much every year GB was at #11

made the complete book of tax definitions about 5x bigger than it had ever been previously.

whileim at it could someoone please explain why extra cctv is bad thing?

in camden its help clear the streets of drug dealing

oh and the smoking ban

torys would never have gone for that!

oh and the smoking ban

and the gold thing is bollox 60% of the reserves were sold- less than 1% of our national debt (if theyd been sold at the highest price)
hysteria for the gullable whipped up by the tory press

pensions yes they fuct them royally though it was the pension holidays that did the real damage, lawson, lamont and brown guilty of that

Cut inheritance tax.

Increased the stamp duty rate in line with inflation.

What? They didn't do either of those? Ohh.

(But yes, Sure start centres, child tax credits and minimum wage are all good calls).

andytherocketeer - Member

Double taxed pensions - dividends earned by the underlying fund are taxed and then the payment is taxed again (afaik).

actually removed a tax perk on pensions that unfairly benefited the richest. Middle earners pay tax to subsidise the richest peoples pensions -

Sold the family silver (well gold) at the lowest possible price he could have obtained. (Currency is secured against gold reserves).

WTF - currency is not secured against gold and has not been for decades.

Try again

Spent money on the NHS - reduced waiting times, rebuilt hospitals

Waiting times, fiddled in many NHS trusts & foundation hosps to meet the govt targets. Means patients in A&E are often bumpoed onto wards within 4 hours because they then meet the 4 hour wait in A&E, even though assessment & primary treatment may not have been completed.

Rebuilt hospitals, well, remember pre 1997 election when Tony B.Liar said that new Labour would do away with private finance initiative? Nearly all hosps built under Labour have been PFI builds, placing NHS trusts & foundations in massive debt for 25 years or longer. Also means semi-privatatisation, as support services, catering, portering, domestic services are usually operated by the build company meaning staff with many years NHS service have in effect been re-employed but without the same contracts.

Sure Start - shown to not have had any significant positive outcomes, hence plans to cancel the scheme.

Paid inordinate amounts of taxpayers money on 'management consultants'

Created a new quango a week

Done away with hundreds of years of legal precedent by doing away with Trial by Jury when it suits

Declared war on our civil liberties generally

Be honest: did you see this in any manifesto's in 1997

Hereford got a nice new hospital didn't it?

Smoking ban and 24 hour drinking. About the only two positive things to come out of the last 13 years that I can remember.

Freedom of Information act
Operational independence for the Bank of England
Smoking ban

devolution and massive NHS improvements

TandemJeremy - Member
devolution and massive NHS improvements

Much as I hated GB and his bunch I will grudgingly admit they got a few things right,

minimum wage
shifting interest reat control to the BOE
smoking ban
fox hunting ban.

However the list of cock ups is endless.

new schools and hospitals yay right up to the point you realise they were all done on credit.
Massive waste of money on social engineering policies with no tangible benefits, ie no new infrastructure, no social benefit either according to a recent audit report.
IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ
Massive disingenous tax rises.
Complete failure to control banks, personbal credit or house prices.
Green policy to hide more tax increases
Complete failure to use tax revenues to invest in the infrastruce of the country (PFI used instead, money wasted on social engineering)
Devolution - massive waste of money and extra civil servents.
Failure to get a grip on public sector unions (again)
Where as the Tories last time seemed to think the service economy would keep us going (which was stupid at best) Labour are even more deluded in thinking you can keep the economy going by making the state the biggest employer.
Generally made life less fair and more difficult for the minority of economically active people who keep the country going.

Still got no faith the Tories will actually resolve problems.

Indepdendence of the BoE for interest rates was a fantastic move. FOI is a fantastic idea, shame they obstruct it whenever they can. CTFs are a good idea too, as are free museums.

Overall, however, I really don't think they've done anything like what they could have done to help people at the bottom end of society, particularly not considering that we've had strong economic growth for much of their tenure, and they've had big majorities.

Devolution is not a waste of money nor does it mean more bureaucrats.

Did anyone mention PFI yet? It's great the way that they have used this to push through hospitals, housing and other fun stuff (in-flight refueling etc) without it showing up on the balance sheet. Luckily we will not have to pay it back, that honour goes to my kids.

But they did give us Alastair Darling's eyebrows. How can they stay so dark when the rest of his hair is so white??????

willard - Member
Did anyone mention PFI yet?

Several times, people hail the number of new hospitals as being something heroic, without realising the impact it will have in the not so distant future as PFI built trusts struggle to make the repayments.

Tron - tax credits made a huge difference to the working poor as did the minimum wage - see Jojos post on the effect of tax credits to her.

This has been a very redistributive government - pity its been done quietly

and massive NHS improvements

Still cost my wife and I some £6k to have the IVF we needed because of the postcode lottery that still exists.

And as I have posted before, those working on the frontline aren't seeing improvements - the senior nurse overseeing our daughters in SCBU when they were born told us how much cut after cut is effecting the work they can do.

But TandemJeremy knows this as we have discussed it before.

But I do agree with the tax credits comment - they are making it viable for my wife to go back to work part time.

Labour's focus was all about "investment". More accurately, they just focussed on spending more than was affordable and dud not focus on the value returned to the society that paid for it:

e.g. Yes, hospitals were re-built but in most cases this hasn't resulted in measurable differences in clinical outcomes. The funding arrangement for the PFI deals means that we will be paying rates of up to 15% interest on the capital for the next 30 or so years - equivalent by one recent estimate to another £135Bn of public debt.

e.g. We have spent £55Bn on rebuilding schools. Again, the link between the rebuilding and educational attainment is not clear - most researchers suggest that standards have not risen, so we are simply paying a lot more for no extra output.

Fortunately for Labour, their "we are investing" line worked pretty well for 13 years as most of the public never questioned whether what we were getting in return represented good value for money, or how it would be paid for over the long term.

Tax free bikes FTW

Stole back Railtrack just to prove that they had the power to tinker with a fully quoted PLC.

Still not sure how paying tax twice on pension earnings is the removal of a perk.

BoE responsibility for interest rates was a good move, but was done for purely party political and personal career reasons. If it worked, GB takes credit. If it failed, GB was not responsible for it failing, even though the failure would have been partly due to his prior actions.

Bombed the **** out of iraq - just because.

Caused a couple of resignations and a suicide by pulling a political fast one to make BBC "guilty" for spreading lies about WMD.

Devolution is not a waste of money nor does it mean more bureaucrats.

TJ - how can you possibly make a statement like that.

3 words: Sottish, Parliament and Building. An utter money-no-object fiasco paid for by us. And for what. To give some fat-faced little nationalist a platform to grandstand his petty little predjudices. Oh.. and to create another tear of needless bureaucracy of overpaid suits who shuffle paper all day while thinking of more ways to interfere with peoples lives.

Notice when they sounded out the 'North West' about having a 'Regional Assembley' everyone told them to Eff Off. As, unlike the Scots or the Welsh, we knew we'd end up having to pay for it ourselves

To give some fat-faced little nationalist a platform to grandstand his petty little predjudices.

Binners - it is not a waste of money - not that it cost nothing - and it costs the English absolutely zero. Try to understand how Scotland is funded - its called the barnett formula.

Scottish devolution does not create an extra layer - what now happens is the scottish office is now overseen by democratically elected people not unelected bureaucrats. The same number of layers of government. Now some is thru holyrood some thru Westminster

its done a lot of good so the money is well spent.

Still - don't let facts get in the way of your petty prejudices will you.

I'm with llama on this

CYCLE TO WORK SCHEME

not that I took adavantage of it, but I thought it a great initiative, and I'm surprised that on a cycling forum only one person mentioned it until now!

the rest is just politics - dicks-in-suits squabbling for power

a fat-faced little nationalist a platform to grandstand his petty little predjudices

i forgot cycle to work scheme!

reduced access in some cases to the countryside due to the NERC act, downgrading Row to footpath with very little evidence, often in the face of overwhelming evidence of higher Row access. Pandered to the redsocks again!

Scottish devolution does not create an extra layer - what now happens is the scottish office is now overseen by democratically elected people not unelected bureaucrats. The same number of layers of government. Now some is thru holyrood some thru Westminster

There is obviously another layer of government - before there were 650 MPs, now there are 650 MPs + 129 SMPs. This costs more money. And quite why you think Scottish parliament civil servants are more democratically elected than the Westminster ones, I don't know - AFAIK both are employed staff overseen by democratically elected politicians.

(Note that I'm not arguing as to whether the Scottish parliament is a good idea or not, it's not something I've really looked into.)

Freedom of Information act
Operational independence for the Bank of England
Smoking ban

- Licensing of the security industry (including private investigators, eventually)

- Data Protection Act

- Minimum wage (reduces the state subsidisy of cheap labour for employers through benefits)

- Human Rights Act

- Bribery Act - this might actually be the most significant act of the last parliament, if it is correctly and enthusiastically enforced; it has great potential to increase growth, expand freedom and reduce poverty in developing countries.

Labour were not bad for supporting UK science - miles away from what could have been achieved in times of prosperity, but better than what we had before. They had the best science minister in years with David Sainsbury, who was a convincing voice for sci and eng interests in the cabinet. Full economic funding of research has and will do a lot for university infrastructure and the science base.

Science policy is so far down the priority list of government manifestos that it's hard to know what will happen under the Tories. Their science minister knows how to make money, but doesn't seem to know anything about science. Actual scientific knowledge is not necessarily a requirement, but it's not clear that he has much of a view on how best to support science research in the UK as a whole. It may not make much difference, as the immediate future is going to be difficult for everyone involved in trying to fund science, across the board.

Evan Harris, one of the strongest lib-dem MPs, was a great advocate for science but unfortunately failed to hold his seat in Oxford.

Sold off the nation's gold reserves at half price.

Ran up the public debt from £6,000,000,000,000 to £157,000,000,000,000 with it set to peak at £1,300,000,000,000,000 by 2012.

Welcomed "with open arms" (Quote by Jack Straw) unchecked immigration causing horrendous pressure on hospitals, schools, and welfare support. Undermining the livelyhoods of many working class Britons.

Gave Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland their own hugely expensive assemblies, thus allowing them to increase public spending to the injustice of tax payers across England.

Committed the tax payer to an uneccessary 20% increase in the number of people employed in the already top-heavy public sector, thus putting more pressure on the public purse.

Signed us up to hugely wasteful inefficient private public partnerships.

Detrimentally interferred with the way schools are run and wasting a spectacular sums of money in the process.

Created their highly paid unelected quangos to wreak damage, misery and injustice in almost all areas.

Surrendered the hard won rebate we used to receive from the EU, leaving the UK with one of the worst deals out of all the EU countries.

Gave away billions of UK public money to foreign causes with no requirement for recompense, or accountability.

Destroyed a private pension industry that was already in a perilous state. The effect of this was for responsible people to seek alternatives for their security in retirement. Buy-to-let created a property bubble which now excludes first time buyers from the property market.

They presided over a period of unchecked irresponsible lending whilst rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the resulting huge tax receipts. This fueled an overcooked housing market where all but the most wealthy are locked in to their homes (or locked out). People are seriously over leveraged, but had little alternative. Personal borrowing is at record levels and only a low interest rate is preventing carnage.

Deregulated the financial sector and set up the near useless, but expensive FSA - you have their incompetence to thank for the banking crisis (amongst other things).

Increased a raft of benefits for those who are not inclined to contribute, making them less likely to contribute. DOn;t we all need to work?

Created huge amounts of red tape to the detriment of British industry.

Created a system where young people feel compelled to run up an average of £25000 debt in pursuing a higher education, but not recognising that the business world does not really value the degrees acquired at these newly formed universities. There simply aren't the jobs for the thousands of graduates, so the £25k debt cripples these people before they have even started out in life!

They have done nothing to address the north south divide. The opposite is true infact.

Erroded civil liberties and privacy. Gave power to local authorities to waste huge sums spying on people by using anti-terrorism laws, but for minor indiscretions like trying to get their child into a decent school!

It's nice to have benefits, privilges and rights, but they need to be
a) affordable and b) fair.

Labour seriously hurts the people of Britain through sheer financial incompetence and unfairness. They undermine our rights. All because of their misguided socialist ideals.

Ideals need to take a back seat and pragmatism needs to come to the fore.

We need dynamic pragmatic leadership and now we might just have that.

Perhaps with Liberals working alongside Conservatives, we might see some benefits.

Time will tell!